Forty years ago tonight, the Sex Pistols brought chaos to Dallas

Johnny Rotten sings to the crowd at The Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta, GA, January 5, 1978. Five days later, the Sex Pistols would play at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas.

Variations of the photo are familiar to most everyone interested in Texas music history. There’s the large sign for the historic Dallas venue The Longhorn Ballroom, and on the marquee beneath it: Sex Pistols (Tonite!) and Merle Haggard.

Haggard, of course, was on his way to becoming one of the most legendary country artists in history. But it’s not his show that’s remembered. The Sex Pistols’ show — it happened on this date in 1978 — was little more than half an hour of chaos and infamy.

And, by most accounts, they sucked.

Forty years is a pretty good anniversary and Dallas Morning News columnist Robert Wilonsky has written about the show:

All I remember from that surreal night are the TV reporters who broke into prime-time programming to report live from the spectacle of white dopes on punk descending upon the Corinth Street honky-tonk for Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious and their imported freak show rumored to be drenched in spittle, blood and other bodily fluids. The impression was everlasting.